Etymologies

Examples

Speaking of Ike, Brinkley has a canny explanation for why what is now called the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was created during the last days of the Eisenhower administration in 1960, despite near-unanimous opposition from Alaska's politicians.

Even with the stimulus package on the verge of passing later this week, the unanimous GOP vote against the bill in the House and the near-unanimous opposition in the Senate revealed a Republican Party surprisingly united in direction and in message for perhaps the first time since losing its congressional majority in 2006.

Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on energy and power demanded the hearing in the hope of slowing the inexorable progress of the bill, known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which enjoys the near-unanimous support of the Republican House majority.

The UN security council finally broke through months of indecision over the bloodshed in Syria on Wednesday night to pass a near-unanimous statement condemning President Bashar al-Assad for unleashing his forces on civilians and violating human rights.

The environmental agency is under order from the Supreme Court to make a determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare, an order that the Bush administration essentially ignored despite near-unanimous belief among agency experts that research points inexorably to such a finding.

As McKibben, a tireless advocate for heeding the scientific consensus that global warming is real, caused by humanity, and must be addressed urgently to prevent global catastrophe, notes, "American conservatism has reached a near-unanimous position, and that position is: pay no attention to all those scientists."